Anna Karenina is the wife of a prominant Russian government official. She leads a correct but confining upper-middle-class existence. She seems content with her life as a proper companion to her dignified, unaffectionate husband and an adoring mother to her young son, until she meets Count Vronsky, a young officer of the guards. He pursues her and she falls madly in love with him. Her husband refuses to divorce her, so she gives up everything, including...

The poverty-stricken Raskolnikov, a talented sutdent, devises a theory about extraordinary men being above the law, since in their brillance they think "new thoughts" and so contribute to society. He then sets out to prove his theory by murdering a vile, cynical old pawnbroker and her sister. The act brings him into contact with his own buried conscience and with two characters, the deeply religious Sonia, who has endured great suffering, and Porfiry,...